


as we grow

by thescyfychannel



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Decapitation, M/M, Multi, Phantom pain, Post-Canon, Post-Sburb/Sgrub, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Trauma, bad memories, phantom injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2019-06-12
Packaged: 2020-05-02 06:13:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19193350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thescyfychannel/pseuds/thescyfychannel
Summary: you've long ago run out of pieces of yourself with which to barter or buy another scant measure of freedom, another brief reprieve.you'd resigned yourself to being haunted by nightmares.you're lucky, you think, to be given that much.you'll learn very fast, though, that your friends won't stand for the sheer levels of stupidity you tend to reach.





	as we grow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sartorially](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sartorially/gifts).



> "Sometimes, a bitch comes out of a horrifying death game a little more battered than they were when they went in. That's okay. The battered bitch has equally battered bitch friends to keep them steady on the path to recovery."
> 
> "• A post-SBURB kind of take, though you can take it however you like! Maybe they survived some other tragedy as a unit, or maybe they're just recovering from SBURB itself while all living together in a spacious house."
> 
> whoops

The thing—you're sure, you're sure the thing is—

The ghosts have no right to you when they come.

You curl to the wall and see nothing but empty space, the blinding light of that falling away before your eyes, the harrowing dark that beckons, and you know, you _know_ , the ghosts have no right to you when they come.

Not when their steel-sharp fingers curl around your neck, not when their cut feels like the cut you've felt a thousand times before, not, not, not, not

the ghosts have no right to you when they come.

 

This is what you repeat to yourself when you end up curled against the hard wall, the words you say-sing over and over, like the repetition is a charm, like the repetition will imbue these words with some kind of special meaning.

Like if you say it often often often enough, it will finally be true.

The ghosts have no right to you when they come, you tell yourself, and will it to be fact with all the heart left in your battered body.

You do not know how much that is. You would be scared to quantify. You would be scared to search.

You _are_  scared to know yourself, you

you are so many kinds of afraid that you might not even be you anymore.

 

That might be a kindness. That might be a gift.

 

* * *

 

The first time her hand settles on your chest, you have no idea who she is. This is all kinds of wrong: You should know her. You _need_  to know her. You can't not know her.

But you don't, at first, you do not know that she is Jane, the first time her hand settles on your chest, you do not know her, you have no idea who she is, she—

what you do know, what you do realize, even without everything all around you, you know that she banishes the ghosts, the ghosts that have no right to you whatsoever. You know they don't come anywhere near you when she is there. You know that you are _safe_  when she is there.

You roll over onto her side, and look up into skies of bleedingly brilliant blue, and you are safe, and you are home.

 

* * *

 

His eyes are green enough to be the grass that runs along the undersides of your feet, his eyes are the shade of the world you never knew and thought you'd left behind (you only ever saw blue. grass, grass wasn't real, grass, grass was a dream.) somewhere under the deep and true and blue and sea—

his hands land on either side of your face and you stare into endless endless endless green. Two blinks, and he's Jake, two blinks and his hands slide down to your throat, two blinks and he's stroking his thumbs over the line-that-isn't-there, massaging healed flesh back into being.

 _you're okay_ , he tells you, so solid in his belief that it feels feels feels real. _everything is fine, and you are healed._

You close your eyes and sink into deepest green and some of that ache, the bone deep ache, seems to fade.

 

* * *

 

Some kind of sound rings through you, and you are not surprised when you do not parse it at first. There are so many words that you hear and never could understand, would never think you could say, even as you say them yourself. It is easy, easy, to lose pieces of your capabilities when the worst things of life take you. It is even easier to lose pieces of yourself, to sink into the pink-tinted nothing—

of Roxy. That is Roxy, Roxy's voice, Roxy's noise, you would know—you _should_  know—those sounds anywhere. Roxy. The last one left there with you. The only other one who understands how several horrific pieces of you slot into place. _Roxy_.

Their arms wrap around you, their chin on your head, and you press your face into their shoulder—Roxy, Roxy's shoulder, it's really really Roxy—and let yourself break down and cry.

You breathe, and the air itself seems to taste like sweetest pink. You finally, _finally_ , remember how to breathe.

 

* * *

 

The thing is—you're _sure_  that the thing is—

The ghosts have no right to you when they come, and that is—you _know_  it is—you know it's because they already do. Because Jane, and Jake, and Roxy, already do. You are theirs, as much as they are yours, and no one else has any right to you, no matter from where or when or how they come.

You are already someone's. Your debts are already owned.

The ghosts? They have absolutely no fucking right to you when they come.

And your friends—your home, your _family_ —will say it as many times as you need to hear.


End file.
